I would be very interested to know how many of you think that all of the top riders dope/ take drugs?
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Do all of the top riders do drugs or dope?
- Thread starter auscyclefan94
- Start date
auscyclefan94 said:
yes. I believe what Kohl (and other pros tell me)
Question: are all of the top cyclists evil?
No
Question: why do you resent doping?
Cos it makes a crapshoot of the sport, often the result of preparatores, and not the legs of the riders.
really should qualify "top pro".
Define it AusCycle.
I classify it, a pro who can win a selective stage in a Protour race, or get on the podium of the GC in the selective stage. Podium of a doyenne.
Define it AusCycle.
I classify it, a pro who can win a selective stage in a Protour race, or get on the podium of the GC in the selective stage. Podium of a doyenne.
It's hard to just group them in to dopers or non-dopers. Or to say that a bus rider has the same needs as a top GC rider.
I think that an overwhelming majority would have breached the WADA code at some point in their career. But not everyone will be blood doping in season.
I think that an overwhelming majority would have breached the WADA code at some point in their career. But not everyone will be blood doping in season.
Should be quite an easy response. No. Not all Top Pros dope. Some, if not most, do, but so long as there is one that doesn't my answer is no. This may prevent him from being right at the spike of the dart of top pros, but he is amongst them.....
....whoever he may be.....
....whoever he may be.....
Not sure. Just like the rest of you 
/edit: Am I the only one who thinks that doping yourself and taking drugs are 2 very different things?
/edit: Am I the only one who thinks that doping yourself and taking drugs are 2 very different things?
bicing said:
when did I say that?
The first stage in the Tour is about as selective a stage you get, and it is spirit level flat. There were a few years around 2002,03, with no Cipo, no Petacchi, there was not the depth in the sprinting peloton.
Since I believe the majority do, I put yes.
But maybe there might just be 1 or 2 that could be clean. It is so hard to believe that a top GC contender for a Tour is on bread and water. A mean, not even a recuperation support.
But maybe there might just be 1 or 2 that could be clean. It is so hard to believe that a top GC contender for a Tour is on bread and water. A mean, not even a recuperation support.
When I asked a (recently ex-)pro that I know about a few top riders that some suspect to be clean, he just laughed. Noone you see racing on TV is clean.
Since the question includes "all top riders." I'd say the answer is no. Consider a rider like Cadel Evans: consistently a GC contender and has never been linked to doping, to my knowledge. His attitude toward doping is something I've always admired:
He acknowledges that it exists, but doesn't concern himself with it. He just rides; there should be more riders like him.
He acknowledges that it exists, but doesn't concern himself with it. He just rides; there should be more riders like him.
bicing said:
He specifically referred to the podium of "doyenne" which is a Classic, specifically Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
I put 'no'. I'm certainly skeptical of riders, but I'm also skeptical of the "I know a pro who rolls his eyes when I suggest that not everyone dopes" confessionals. Sure, you can't be naive and believe in the word games and false contrition of dopers who are caught or almost caught, or of the UCI for that matter. But at the same time, I think practically most riders can only suspect, and not know. It's easy for Kohl to say 'everyone who beat me must have been doping because I'm really good on dope and they beat me', but really what does he know about the ability of others? And, although I've long since separated myself from defending riders that I like just because I like them and hope they don't dope, I'd like to believe that there are some riders, and a growing number, who ride clean. I don't think this is beyond the realm of possibility.
skidmark said:
Good, you have to be sceptical about the stories told from both sides of the issue. But what has surprised me in the conservations I've had is how normal doping is for the average pro rider. Getting the drugs is an everyday issue of logistics, knowing when you could take the basic stuff to avoid detection is a routine part of life, doping within teams is not an 'open secret' but actually just 'open'. We are talking high-level amateurs, neo-pro's and full pro's. It's routine. Sending the neo-pro off over a border to pick up stuff is like the new recruits on a football squad cleaning the first-teamers' boots.
The problem is that there is no way to prove he's clean. Even if all top riders are doped as I believe, it stands to reason that dome of them would not have been implicated yet. After all there have been top rider who were never implicated right up until the point that they were implicated. Or confessed to boost the sales of their new book. Or tested positive.ImmaculateKadence said:
As for his attitude towards doping it does sound admirable, but ultimately it's just words. There's nothing preventing a doper from saying whatever he thinks will convince the most people that he is clean.
+1.R.0.t.O said:
I know some forists in here that have ridden in the Peloton at Pro-levels and they are the most skeptical about clean cycling. That's coming from people who know what's going on in the inside. Not coming from armchair cyclists.
It makes you wonder.
Sometimes I wonder if I should stop watching or just accept it and pray that the teams where the Colombian riders are racing have a good "health package". That way I can enjoy cycling again.
Cerberus said:
All good points, but it speaks to a level cynicism toward the sport. There are several top pros that I don't suspect at all. Others I have my suspicions but no assumptions; it's more of a "it wouldn't surprise if" kind of thing.
Call me naive but I haven't reached that point where I assume or think all top pros are doped.
I voted "Yes". For one, there are more than enough angles to take, lest it be the blood profile quirks and anomalies that, while easy enough to "explain" can just as easily be doping proof, to level of exposure that things like OP, Friedburg clinic, T-Mobile doctor scandal, performance spikes, as well as the never-ending series of positives, no matter how solid or weak the evidence may be.
I appreciate blackcat's follow-on questions he poses:
Question: are all of the top cyclists evil? - Not in a strict, child-abuser/rapist, sociopathic sense. There is evil in this world. I have seen it. The issues of doping in sport are not in the same galaxy of the true evil that men commit. Sorry, not even close.
Question: why do you resent doping?
I really don't "resent" it in the normal definition of resent. It damages the sport inwardly and outwardly in many ways, most notably it creates huge risk for the industry of cycle racing and the people in the sport. The sport does not "benefit" by doping, per se, as the popularity of the sport would not rise or fall depending on the outcome of doping or not, specifically the change in speeds and believability of the performances. Doping is only an exercise in managing risk, it is a business decision.
As an internal cultural phenomenon of the cycling "workplace", when you are faced with needing a "program" simply to stay employed, and the prospect of not being employed means driving a truck, working a production facility, or back to University and into the general workplace, it is not a difficult decision.
I find it highly dubious that the climate of resentment and contempt on this board is bourne from such a limited view and access to real knowledge and information, not just some rumor or "heard from a guy" stuff, but the real guts of it.
I find Joe Papp's insight, when his pseudo-mea-culpa is stripped away, to be a ray of light and truth about how the mechanics work. Clearly the drugs are not "hard" to get. It is not "hard" to develop a program to evade coming pos, and the results/impact on ability is so starkly evident. From his view, rationalizing the decision to dope is easy to understand. I don't think anyone should bash Papp, or think them superior to him based on his decisions. At a minimum, he was caught, is paying a high price, and has accepted his fate. Put it in the context of the things that really impact you and our life, face up to the idea that "doping" probably does not directly touch your life and mature your view. FFS, if you need a "cause", where true evil is being fought, and real lives (as in dead/alive) are at stake, there are plenty of things to get resentful about, and take active steps to help, fix, solve, contribute.
Since for most of us, cycling has a special place in our lives, our escape, the personal goal center, the way we've regained our health, or our sanity, etc. I think it is a sign of weakness and low intellect to take personal affront to the cleanliness of how the professional racing aspect of the sport makes its sausage. The management of the sausage companies should be quite a bit better, and there should be a complete separation of church (cycling) and state (IOC), though that is unlikely, since it appears the majority of the issues are bourne of root political topology, with parties like WADA, UCI, NGB's, national agencies of enforcement for a myriad of politically motivated laws and standards.
I feel for cycle racing to have a viable commercial future at the highest end of the sport, these parties must align around the idea that any "huge" doping bust would probably cast the sport into the gutter (and I think that is coming despite some flare-ups). Results of recent issues have all but destroyed cycling in the countries of Germany, Austria, Portugal, and to a lesser extent in Italy and France. These are core cycling "communities", where the culture of racing, the popularity of the athletes and the traditions of the sport. And they are damaged.
I see the attempts to win a "war" on doping to be surely winnable but any victory that is seen coming as a result of top-down teardowns would most certainly be pyrrhic. I am not directly or indirectly advocating use of dope, more that I feel the whole thrust of the issue is not a "just" moral fight and that it is the in-fightings and politicization of the issue, rather than the seriousness of the problem itself, that has made the issue so big, so polarizing that it has become the nearly the "story" rather than the racing itself. Certainly, the stakeholder countries, and their internal cycling fans, markets for cycling goods, and athletes, could not endure another massive scandal. Knowing this, it will simply subsist on a steady diet of side-scandals, secondary busts, and a constant in-fight for the crumbs that make up the cycle racing industry.
For those who want cycle racing to be their sparkling, utopian sanctuary where performances inspire and courage and effort and perseverance are the path to righteousness and reward, you are doomed to feel great resentment when you come to see the “sausage” making at work. Simply accept the fact that cycling is not this mystical realm, where “dreams” are made, where heroes are virtuous and canonized. Yes, it is a sport, but for it to exist it is a dirty business that grinds along, chews up young athletes, casts aside those it deems under-talented, distasteful or those who “complain” too loudly. The greatest change-agent you have is protest. If you resent doping in cycling, don’t watch. Don’t buy a new kit, don’t subscribe to the websites and media that pander the salaciousness of the sport. Withhold the only things the sport has, fans and viewers with pocketbooks. To standby, cynical arrows drawn on your bows of moral superiority, you only add to the festering of the thing you resent most. Take action but take the right action.
These are my thoughts.
I appreciate blackcat's follow-on questions he poses:
Question: are all of the top cyclists evil? - Not in a strict, child-abuser/rapist, sociopathic sense. There is evil in this world. I have seen it. The issues of doping in sport are not in the same galaxy of the true evil that men commit. Sorry, not even close.
Question: why do you resent doping?
I really don't "resent" it in the normal definition of resent. It damages the sport inwardly and outwardly in many ways, most notably it creates huge risk for the industry of cycle racing and the people in the sport. The sport does not "benefit" by doping, per se, as the popularity of the sport would not rise or fall depending on the outcome of doping or not, specifically the change in speeds and believability of the performances. Doping is only an exercise in managing risk, it is a business decision.
As an internal cultural phenomenon of the cycling "workplace", when you are faced with needing a "program" simply to stay employed, and the prospect of not being employed means driving a truck, working a production facility, or back to University and into the general workplace, it is not a difficult decision.
I find it highly dubious that the climate of resentment and contempt on this board is bourne from such a limited view and access to real knowledge and information, not just some rumor or "heard from a guy" stuff, but the real guts of it.
I find Joe Papp's insight, when his pseudo-mea-culpa is stripped away, to be a ray of light and truth about how the mechanics work. Clearly the drugs are not "hard" to get. It is not "hard" to develop a program to evade coming pos, and the results/impact on ability is so starkly evident. From his view, rationalizing the decision to dope is easy to understand. I don't think anyone should bash Papp, or think them superior to him based on his decisions. At a minimum, he was caught, is paying a high price, and has accepted his fate. Put it in the context of the things that really impact you and our life, face up to the idea that "doping" probably does not directly touch your life and mature your view. FFS, if you need a "cause", where true evil is being fought, and real lives (as in dead/alive) are at stake, there are plenty of things to get resentful about, and take active steps to help, fix, solve, contribute.
Since for most of us, cycling has a special place in our lives, our escape, the personal goal center, the way we've regained our health, or our sanity, etc. I think it is a sign of weakness and low intellect to take personal affront to the cleanliness of how the professional racing aspect of the sport makes its sausage. The management of the sausage companies should be quite a bit better, and there should be a complete separation of church (cycling) and state (IOC), though that is unlikely, since it appears the majority of the issues are bourne of root political topology, with parties like WADA, UCI, NGB's, national agencies of enforcement for a myriad of politically motivated laws and standards.
I feel for cycle racing to have a viable commercial future at the highest end of the sport, these parties must align around the idea that any "huge" doping bust would probably cast the sport into the gutter (and I think that is coming despite some flare-ups). Results of recent issues have all but destroyed cycling in the countries of Germany, Austria, Portugal, and to a lesser extent in Italy and France. These are core cycling "communities", where the culture of racing, the popularity of the athletes and the traditions of the sport. And they are damaged.
I see the attempts to win a "war" on doping to be surely winnable but any victory that is seen coming as a result of top-down teardowns would most certainly be pyrrhic. I am not directly or indirectly advocating use of dope, more that I feel the whole thrust of the issue is not a "just" moral fight and that it is the in-fightings and politicization of the issue, rather than the seriousness of the problem itself, that has made the issue so big, so polarizing that it has become the nearly the "story" rather than the racing itself. Certainly, the stakeholder countries, and their internal cycling fans, markets for cycling goods, and athletes, could not endure another massive scandal. Knowing this, it will simply subsist on a steady diet of side-scandals, secondary busts, and a constant in-fight for the crumbs that make up the cycle racing industry.
For those who want cycle racing to be their sparkling, utopian sanctuary where performances inspire and courage and effort and perseverance are the path to righteousness and reward, you are doomed to feel great resentment when you come to see the “sausage” making at work. Simply accept the fact that cycling is not this mystical realm, where “dreams” are made, where heroes are virtuous and canonized. Yes, it is a sport, but for it to exist it is a dirty business that grinds along, chews up young athletes, casts aside those it deems under-talented, distasteful or those who “complain” too loudly. The greatest change-agent you have is protest. If you resent doping in cycling, don’t watch. Don’t buy a new kit, don’t subscribe to the websites and media that pander the salaciousness of the sport. Withhold the only things the sport has, fans and viewers with pocketbooks. To standby, cynical arrows drawn on your bows of moral superiority, you only add to the festering of the thing you resent most. Take action but take the right action.
These are my thoughts.
My attitude is that I'm more than happy to give riders the benefit of the doubt but without being in the least bit surprised when any rider is found to be doping. Evans, for eg: perfectly willing to believe that he's not doping, there's nothing linking him to doping, etc, but at the same time wouldn't be at all shocked to learn that he is. Must admit that it's a bit tougher to extend the benefit of the doubt to those in the gray area, like Contador or Valverde, ie riders who have been linked to doping.
Big thing for me, though, is that I can't watch a great individual effort anymore without the little voice whispering, "great ride, but clean?" - Landis' ride, for eg - even while watching it, I didn't think it was real. And that's how doping has (imo, or for me at least) ruined the sport. Back when I started following cycling, in the early '90s, I loved watching Chiappucci and Pantani and Virenque and Leblanc and Berzin etc and was completely naive to the fact that they (and most of the peloton) were doping. So although I'm glad that the doping issue has come to the fore - cause that's the only way the sport is ever going to clean up - I have to admit that I also miss those days when I could watch cycling without suspecting anything.
Oh should address the thread topic - yes, I suspect that most, but not all, top riders are doping.
Big thing for me, though, is that I can't watch a great individual effort anymore without the little voice whispering, "great ride, but clean?" - Landis' ride, for eg - even while watching it, I didn't think it was real. And that's how doping has (imo, or for me at least) ruined the sport. Back when I started following cycling, in the early '90s, I loved watching Chiappucci and Pantani and Virenque and Leblanc and Berzin etc and was completely naive to the fact that they (and most of the peloton) were doping. So although I'm glad that the doping issue has come to the fore - cause that's the only way the sport is ever going to clean up - I have to admit that I also miss those days when I could watch cycling without suspecting anything.
Oh should address the thread topic
- yes, I suspect that most, but not all, top riders are doping.
Escarabajo said:
I still enjoy watching the sport and I have come to terms with my opinion that basically all the top riders are doped up.
First off, I recognize that my blanket assumption that "they are all doped" is kind of a pre-emptive defense mechanism. In the past when I was still new to the sport and willfully naive I was "hurt" and felt pretty bad when a number of pros that I respected and admired were busted, admitted, or implicated (examples that resonated with me were Hamilton, Landis, Armstrong, Basso, and Museeow). So now as part of watching the sport I do not allow myself to identify much or take a particular liking to any specific rider and by assuming that they are all doped I am not surprised or alarmed when riders continue to test positive. Yes, sadly I operate on a guilty untill proven innocent approach but the sport has done this to itself and I have no sympathy for any riders who cry and whine in the media and on these forums about how they deserve the benefit of the doubt. Sorry, but in this dirty sport you get the assumption of being dirty from me and many other fans, it's up to you to change the perception.
Next, some may wonder how can I still enjoy the sport with such a cynical view ? Well my response is that the appreciation for the physical act of racing is undiminished. Drugs or not, all of these riders must still suffer like animals on race day, they must plumb the depths of human endurance and courage and they must push themselves to the breaking point both mentally and physically to win a bike race. Drugs do not change this fundamental truth of the sport, although they do of course allow all of the athletes to do a bit more than they could clean. Drugs also do not take away from the sheer volume and intensity of training that is required to compete at the top level and the way that a rider must devote every aspect of his life to the sport and live like a monk. All top level riders must do this to succeed, those who dope do so in addition to complete dedication to training not necessarily as a shortcut. Some may use doping as a bit of a shortcut but they are likely not champions.
Next up, what about how drugs distort the results of the competition and that a true natural talent may be pack fodder because he has chosen to race clean in a dirty peloton? Again, I cannot bring myself to care any longer. The individual riders and their human dramas do not concern me personally. The way I see it is that all of these men have made the choice to devote their lives completely to cycling and they are responsible for the consequences of their own choices whether to dope or not dope. I try not to judge them excessively either way and still try to appreciate the sport for what it is.
All that being said, yes I would prefer the sport to be clean but I feel that my views are those of a cynical realist and I prefer to attempt to see and understand the world as it really is.
Until recently there was no test for HGH. HGH dramatically improves recovery and will make a difference between winning and losing in a stage race hands down.
In training, faster recovery = more training = better cyclist. With this approach one might not have the need for drugs in the actual race - barring stage races.
If you were a pro, would you use a product that bears virtually zero risk and ultimately ensures that you can pay the mortgage?
In training, faster recovery = more training = better cyclist. With this approach one might not have the need for drugs in the actual race - barring stage races.
If you were a pro, would you use a product that bears virtually zero risk and ultimately ensures that you can pay the mortgage?
blackcat said:
In answer to your good questions, which I think go to the heart of the matter.
I don't think any of them are evil. I think they all think that they are doing just the same to prepare as all of their fellows, and that evading detection is just part of the game, like giving up any individual glory to work for the team leader.
Why I resent it then is the pressure that it puts on young riders with talent, if they want to be a pro they have no choice but to join the same warped world. I come in contact with kids, in my shop, on my team, and high school MTBers, sometimes very talented ones come along. It is hard for me to encourage them to strive for that level with the suspicions I have of what it takes to get there.
BikeCentric said:
+1 to all that you said.
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